Steam Boiler Decision & Approach

Olo

Hello All:



We currently have a 95 year old home that is abut 90% original single pipe steam and about 10% hot water baseboard in the 3 additions added to the house sometime in the 1980's.  The current boiler is a 30-35 year old Weil-Mclain that is oil-fired and does double duty.  It obviously provides steam to the old rads and when the additions were put in, they basically pulled hot water from the bottom of the same boiler and send it to the hot water baseboards and toe-kick heaters in the new additions.



the system works pretty good, although one of the hot-water zones is less than adequate.



Nonetheless, due to the age of the boiler and the fact that gas is now available in our home, I am collecting bids to replace the old oil boiler with a new gas one.



One contacter is proposing to leave everything as is and just installing a new Utica PEG-D series and continuing to suck boiler water from the bottom and sending it to the hot water zones as before.



Another contractor is proposing some sort of Weil-McLain boiler that treats the hybrtis situation as 2 different "systems" within the same boiler.  There is an optional coil in the boiler to drive the hot water zones, thus not sending rusty-scaley water to the baseboards, etc..



Is this second option a much better solution for a hybrid system like mine ?  Any thoughts would be appreciated.



Oleh

Mark N

Site search

Do a site search it is in the upper right corner of the home page. Search for "condensate hot-water heating". Read the article lots of good info there.

JStar

Steam

A properly installed, REPEAT, properly installed steam boiler with a hot water loop can work very well. The installer must know how to set them up properly. If nobody has mentioned anything bronze or stainless steel pumps, don't use them.

kevin_58

new boiler

I would go with # 2. Steam boiler with tankless coil. I did it in my house. Boiler costs more and more material but much better choice. Pipe like hot water system,pump away from spiro vent and expantion tank and you will have quiet baseboard and be happy.

Charlie from wmass

one point with using a tankless

due to the restrictive design of the tankless I prefer to pump into the tankless. I put the air scoop and expansion tank on the inlet side of the circulator. Make sure to add a #30 relief valve.